Producing Korean literature (KLit) for export

Abstract

AbstractHow does art from what have been culturally peripheral countries that were not former colonies of Western powers scale shift or find its way to the global center? What can the Korean case tell us about the circulation of contemporary literature in a “small language?” The scholarly literature offers many answers to these questions: the role of intermediaries, the power dynamics within the world system of translation, the topographies of literary circulation, and a range of other political, cultural, economic, and social factors. We propose that the Korean case sheds new light on these discussions in several important ways loosely subsumed under the umbrella of infrastructures—the platforms, passageways, containers, and gates that organize the writing, reading, publishing, and marketing of the literature. We see three kinds of infrastructures as catalysts of Korean literary success including infrastructures of export and promotion, infrastructures of discovery and consecration, and infrastructures of connection and vernacularization.